2180 – Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (1981)

spacetime coordinates: 1975 – 1977 in West Berlin

Natja Brunckhorst Characters: Christiane Film: Christiane F. Wir Kinder Vom Bahnhof Zoo We Children From Bahnhof Zoo Christiane F. DE 1981 Director: Uli Edel 02 April 1981 Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo BRD 1981, Regie Uli Edel Natja Brunckhorst / Filmplakat, Plakat, Poster, Filmposter PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY Copyright: MaryxEvansxAFxArchivexConstantinxFilm 12468751 editorial use only

Christiane F. (German: Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo) is a 1981 German biographical drama film directed by Uli Edel that portrays the descent of Christiane Felscherinow, a bored 13-year-old growing up in mid-1970s West Berlin, to a 14-year-old heroin addict. Based on the 1978 non-fiction book Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (We Children from Zoo Station), transcribed and edited from tape recordings by Kai Hermann and Horst Rieck, the film immediately acquired cult status and features David Bowie as both composer and as himself. In 2013, Felscherinow published her autobiography Christiane F. – My Second Life.

The film was shot with a low budget in 1980 and released in 1981, but set between 1975 and 1977 in West Berlin. It skips the beginning and the end of the book, and concentrates on the main story, starting when Christiane begins her nightlife in Berlin at around 13 years old, and stops rather abruptly after her suicide attempt by stating that she recovered. In the real story, Christiane F. never fully recovered from her addiction, nor did her troubles end with going to Hamburg to begin withdrawal.

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The cast is composed mainly of first-time actors, most of whom were still in school at the time and have mostly not pursued acting careers since. Natja Brunckhorst is the only cast member who continued to act in German films and television. Real life “Stella” (Catherine Schabeck), aged 18 at the time, has a short cameo as the drug dealer that sells the first dose of heroin to Detlev. Most of the extras at the railway station and at SOUND were actual drug users and prostitutes. It would now be illegal to have minors act in the film’s graphic shoot-up, nudity and sex scenes; at the time, however, all the production needed was a written letter of consent from the parents to proceed with filming.

Bowie’s music from his albums made in Berlin during 1976 and 1977 is played throughout the picture, and as he was at the peak of his popularity during the late 1970s and early 1980s, his presence helped boost the film’s commercial success. (wiki)

imdb

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Can you dream about anything?
Can you really be sure you are not dreaming?
Can you dream -are you dreaming-?
Have you pinched yourself to see that you weren’t dreaming?

1887 – No Sudden Move (2021)

timespace coordinates: 1955 in Detroit

No Sudden Move is a 2021 American period crime thriller film directed, photographed, and edited by Steven Soderbergh. The film features an ensemble cast of Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, David Harbour, Jon Hamm, Amy Seimetz, Brendan Fraser, Kieran Culkin, Noah Jupe, Craig Grant, Julia Fox, Frankie Shaw, Ray Liotta, and Bill Duke. (wiki)

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1883 – Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

timespace coordinates: 1920’s (filmed over a period of about 3 years) – urban life in the Soviet cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odessa.

The film Man with a Movie Camera represents
AN EXPERIMENTATION IN THE CINEMATIC COMMUNICATION
Of visual phenomena
WITHOUT THE USE OF INTERTITLES
(a film without intertitles)
WITHOUT THE HELP OF A SCENARIO
(a film without a scenario)
WITHOUT THE HELP OF THEATRE
(a film without actors, without sets, etc.)
This new experimentation work by Kino-Eye is directed towards the creation of an authentically international absolute language of cinema on the basis of its complete separation from the language of theatre and literature.

Man with a Movie Camera (Russian: Человек с кино-аппаратом, romanized: Chelovek s kino-apparatom) is an experimental 1929 Soviet Ukrainian silent documentary film, directed by Dziga Vertov and edited by his wife Yelizaveta Svilova.

Man with a Movie Camera was largely dismissed upon its initial release; the work’s fast cutting, self-reflexivity, and emphasis on form over content were all subjects of criticism. In the British Film Institute’s 2012 Sight & Sound poll, however, film critics voted it the 8th greatest film ever made, and it was later named the best documentary of all time in the same magazine. (wiki)

imdb   /   the kinoks

1617 – Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (2020)

A look at the final moments of a Las Vegas dive bar called ‘The Roaring 20s’. (fictional non-fiction)

Depicting the final day of a hangdog hangout called the Roaring 20’s, located well off of the plastic fantastic glitz of the Las Vegas strip, the film makes you wonder if gentrification is even the right term for whatever is going on here. Diving into this doco is a bit like hanging around in Star Wars’ Mos Eisley cantina long after Luke, Han and the gang have gone, leaving a slain bounty hunter and a severed arm behind them. (timeout)

“Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets” might have been inspired by 2016, but it embodies 2020. (indiewire)

“The perfect distillation of bar life.” (spectrumculture)

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imdb   /   rottentomatoes

1606 – Banlieue 13 / DISTRICT B13 (2004)

timespace coordinates:  suburbs of Paris, 2013

In 2010, social problems have overrun the poorer suburbs of Paris. Especially Banlieue 13, commonly referred to as B13: a ghetto with a population of two million people. Unable to control B13, the authorities surround the entire area with a high wall topped by barbed tape, forcing the inhabitants within to survive without education, proper utilities or police protection. Police checkpoints stop anybody going in or out. Three years later, the district has become overrun with gangs…

District 13 (French title Banlieue 13 or B13), is a 2004 French action film directed by Pierre Morel and written and produced by Luc Besson. The film is notable for its depiction of parkour in a number of stunt sequences that were completed without the use of wires or computer generated effects.

David Belle, regarded as the founder of parkour, plays Leïto, the main character of the story. (wiki)

imdb   /   rt

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Brick Mansions (2014)

timespace coordinates: 2018, dystopian Detroit.

English-language remake of District 13

imdb

1595 – Fallen Angels (1995)

timespace coordinates: 1995 urban, nighttime Hong Kong

Fallen Angels is a 1995 Hong Kong drama film written and directed by Wong Kar-wai, starring Leon Lai, Michelle Reis, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Charlie Yeung, and Karen Mok. As with the filmmaker’s other features, plot takes a back seat to mood.

Originally conceived by Wong as the third story for 1994’s Chungking Express, it was cut after he decided that it was complete without it. He instead decided to develop the story further into its own feature film and borrowed elements of Chungking Express, such as themes, locations and methods of filming. Wanting to also try to differentiate it from Chungking and to try something new, Wong decided along with cinematographer Christopher Doyle to shoot mainly at night and using extreme wide-angle lenses, keeping the camera as close to the talents as possible to give a detached effect from the world around them.

In an interview, Wong had this to say:

…To me, Chungking Express and Fallen Angels are one film that should be three hours long. I always think these two films should be seen together as a double bill. In fact, people asked me during an interview for Chungking Express: “You’ve made these two stories which have no relationship at all to each other, how can you connect them?” And I said, ‘The main characters of Chungking Express are not Faye Wong or Takeshi Kaneshiro, but the city itself, the night and day of Hong Kong. Chungking Express and Fallen Angels together are the bright and dark of Hong Kong.” I see the films as inter-reversible, the character of Faye Wong could be the character of Takeshi in Fallen Angels; Brigitte Lin in Chungking could be Leon Lai in Fallen Angels. All of their characters are inter-reversible. Also, in Chungking we were shooting from a very long distance with long lenses, but the characters seem close to us.

In the Village Voice, J. Hoberman wrote:

The acme of neo-new-wavism, the ultimate in MTV alienation, the most visually voluptuous flick of the fin de siècle, a pyrotechnical wonder about mystery, solitude, and the irrational love of movies that pushes Wong’s style to the brink of self-parody.

wiki   /   imdb   /   rottentomatoes

1506

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WTF Fest | Powerful Pig Pastor (Mr Strange Winner)